The sea-coast is generally steep, in some parts termi nating in lofty cliffs of whinstone. Compared with the coasts farther to the south, it is reckot,ed safe and com modious. Adjacent to it are several Nands, the princi pal of which are Coquet and Holy Island. Coquet lies opposite the mouth of the river so called, at the distance of about a mile. It was much frequented by monks in former times, and had a fortress on it, the ruins of which are now partly converted into a lighthouse. It abounds with rabbits, and contains seven acres of good pasture. Holy Island was once the scat of a monastery, which gloried in having been the residence of St. Cuthbert. It lies about two miles off the main land, from which it is accessible to carts at low water. It is nearly over against the mouth of the Lindis, a brook, from connec tion with which it was of old called Lindisfarne, the recess or retirement of the Lindis. The circuit of it measures nine miles ; and includes 1020 acres, about half of which is sand, and stocked with rabbits. The remaining part, consisting of good.soil, is now inclosed and cultivated. On the west side are, a small fishing town, and a castle garrisoned by a few soldiers from Berwick. In 1715, one- Launcclot Ellington seized it for a short time, in the name of the Pretender.
The fisheries on these islands, and along the coast, are Ihnited in extent, and hy no means productive. The rivers are more valuable in this respect. They yield excellent sport to the angler ; and abound in salmon, which are caught in large quantities. In the Tyne, within half a century', two hundred and seventy-five sal mon have been taken at a single draught. Owing to some works at Bywell, which obstruct their ascent, these fishes have now abandoned the Tyne; but the Tweed still affords above 8000 cwt. of them annually, for which there is paid in rents nearly 16,000/. The inferior streams afford a considerable supply also, and literally swarm with trouts.
But the grand source of wealth to Northumberland is tlie produce of its mines. Lead orc is found in great abundance on the western side of the county. The mines of Allenhead have been worked from time im memorial, and are still highly productive. The ore is found intermixed with calcareous or fluor spar ; and the sides of the vein are often richly decorated with pyrites and yellow ores of copper. The whole mines of this district annually give about 12,000 bings, or nearly 5000 tons of ore. It is smelted and refined at Dukes field ; and produces about seven or eight ounces of sil ver from each fother of lead. Mines of lead are also worked in the vicinities of Corbridge and of Bambo rough ; some others formerly existed at Stonecroft and in Rothbury forest. The lead veins usually contain ores of zinc in great abundance : and large quantities of iron stone arc inclosed in the strata of indurated clay through out all the coal districts.
The iron-stonc found here is not now prepared to any extent within the county ; but the accompanying mine ral, the pit coal, has long formed the staple commodity of Northumberland. This valuable substance occurs in
immense beds, dispersed under a surface of about 300 square miles, the principal part of which lies within a triangle, having Tynemouth, Bywell, and Alnemouth at its corners. This tract, so far as it has been pierced into, is found to consist of various kinds of siliceous stone, schistus, and coal. Beds of schistus usually lie both above and beneath the coal-scams, and are often thickly impressed with vegetable forms, such as ferns, vetches, and grasses ; in some cascs cars of barley and leaves of pine-apples have been noticed. In these bcds are also fount] layers of iron-stones, sometimes in nodules ; more frequently in rhomboids, having the corners rounded off. Sometimes large trees are found, extending out of the clay into the stone strata: At Kenton are some seats of stone, hewn from one of those remarkable fossils, that show the yearly rings of the tree, and the roughness of its bark. Sometimes the wood is half carbonated, like the surturbrand of Iceland.
In this, as in every coal district, the stratification which attends the fossil always terminates, and is ill-defined and disordered, when it appmaches any mountain of por phyry or granite. The strata generally dip towards tho east ; and each stratum usually retains its parallelism, with regard to those immediately above and below it, through all the confusion of those perpendicular rents and chasms, which, in. mining language, are termed dikes, slips, hitches, and troubles, Some of those chasms arc filled tip with substances swept into them, as it would seem, from the surface, such as clay, sand, and round stones. Some of them contain metals and beau tiful spars; others are composed of basalt. The basalt dike in the coal-mine at Walker is noted among mine ralogists for being cased with cinders on each side.
Out of those mines, some of which are 280 yards deep, the fossil is extracted by many ingenious contri vances, wherein the labour has, in later times, been greatly diminished by the application or steam-engines, which arc now in universal use, the first having been sct up in the year 1714. The coals are conveyed in rail ways to the water,—by much the larger portion of them to the Tyne, where they are taken on ship-board, and transported to London and all other quarters of the em pire. They are reckoned superior to every other spe cies ; and even in districts where similar minerals abound most plentifully', it is customary for the people to procure a portion of Newcastle coals to mix with their own. In thc neighbourhood of limestone strata, a kind of coal is found, which, though comparatively use less in other respects, is employed for burning thc at tendant mineral, and excellently adapted for that pur pose.